Nickelodeon USA to Premiere 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' on Monday 17th September 2018

Nickelodeon has just announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 that Nick USA will start to premiere and show Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Monday 17th September 2018! COWABUNGA! More news coming soon!

Ready to Rise? The trailer for Nickelodeon's new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is emerging from the sewer, and you can get a glimpse right here, mere seconds after it made its debut during Nick's Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comic-Con panel!

Debuting Sept. 17, the Nickelodeon 2-D animated action-comedy — which centers on four crime-fighting turtle brothers with emerging ninja powers and reimagines some TMNT dynamics — will see the quartet “encounter absurd mutants and battle bizarre villains, each with their own motivations” and “discover a mystical world they never knew existed beneath the streets of New York City.” The amped-up trailer offers assorted calls to action and one Jersey joke.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles features a celeb-heavy voice cast, including Omar Miller (Ballers) as the oldest sibling/ringleader Raphael, Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) as the charming Leonardo, Josh Brener (Silicon Valley) as tech whiz Donatello, Brandon Mychal Smith (You’re The Worst) as the skateboarding artist Michelangelo, and Kat Graham (The Vampire Diaries) as human friend April O’Neil — and the first African-American April. Eric Bauza (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) also joins the cast as Splinter, both father figure and sensei to the turtles, while John Cena plays the villain Baron Draxum, who’s determined to turn everyone on Earth into mutants.

Even more famous folks have been added to the guest cast: Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) voices a giant spider mutant named Big Mama; John Michael Higgins (Pitch Perfect) is Warren Stone, a former news anchor turned mutant earthworm; Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) voices Albearto, a birthday-loving robot; Veep stars Sam Richardson and Tim Simons will be heard as a pair of Draxum’s gargoyles named Huginn and Muninn; Sex Pistols and PiL singer John Rotten Lydon voices a power-seeking mutant pig named Meat Sweats; Rhys Darby (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) is Hypno-Potamus, a mutant magician/hippo; Jorge Gutierrez (El Tigre) is Ghostbear, a human pro-wrestler champion who likes to cheat; Rob Paulsen (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) plays Foot Lieutenant, the leader of the Foot Clan; and Maurice LaMarche (Animaniacs) is Foot Brute, the Foot Lieutenant’s right-hand man.

If you don’t want to wait until September to check out Rise, the first episode can be previewed at Friday, July 20, at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on Nickelodeon USA.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise started in the ’80s as a comic book series, expanding its footprint into film (Megan Fox and Will Arnett starred in two Michael Bay TMNT moves in 2014 and 2016), TV, and video games. Nickelodeon aired a 3-D computer animated series titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that ran from 2012 to 2017. A third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is in the works.

Watch Nickelodeon's latest Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles below, via Entertainment Weekly!:

Nickelodeon’s ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Go Virtual at Comic-Con 2018 | NickSDCC [Updated]

Nickelodeon has big plans to introduce its reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise during Comic-Con 2018 with a virtual-reality (VR) experience that will put journalists and some lucky superfans directly into the show’s animated universe to chat live with two of the Turtles, Donatello and Michelangelo.

The Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Live experience, set for Friday, July 20, is the latest project from Nickelodeon’s cutting-edge Entertainment Lab, which launched last year to experiment with new and emerging technologies and broaden entertainment options for Nick’s audiences.

“It’s really fun,” Chris Young, Senior Vice President (SVP) of Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, told Variety. “There’s a great moment when you realize you’re fully immersed inside of the Turtles’ universe. The characters that you know really well are right in front of you, and you can have a conversation with them.”

The team has constructed a green-screen cube, which is where users will put on HTC Vive VR headsets and immediately find themselves in a stylized New York street scene.

“The idea is that the person will be in the Ninja Turtle reboot universe,” explains Young. “A camera is filming the journalist and compositing them live in real time into the environment. They’ll have a big Nickelodeon cartoon avatar head that can be chosen ahead of time.”

It’s quite a setup behind the scenes, with several high-powered gaming computers, video and audio technicians, and a team of puppeteers making the Turtles move while the actors respond to the reporter’s or fan’s questions. Josh Brener, who voices Donatello, and Brandon Mychal Smith, who plays Michelangelo, will be on hand at Comic-Con to interact with users in real time. The puppeteers are stationed so they can watch the actors as they improv and create the animated performance.

“We’ll be able to switch between different shots as the interview is happening,” says Young. “We can cut between all those things. That’s the technical side. Then there are some really interesting things happening on the audio side in order to create the proper delays and have everybody talking in sync. That audio is driving the character animation. The big idea is that we should have a little video package to hand to people when they’re done with their interview.”

The Entertainment Lab team worked with Adobe Character Animator, Epic Unreal Engine and NewTek NDI to create the VR experience. And this is just one of a number of projects the experimental lab is working on. “This built on a lot of stuff that we’ve been doing in the lab over the last couple of years, specifically around this virtual cinema, mixed reality, VR pipeline,” Young says.

Earlier this year, the team debuted Nickelodeon and Imax’s SlimeZone, a multi-player social virtual-reality experience at IMAX VR Centers as well as a 360-degree episode of Nick’s popular animated series The Loud House.

“A lot of that fundamentally applied to what we’re doing here,” Young explains. “A lot of it was copying and pasting over a curve that we had already implemented. Then it was just refining it to do exactly what this needed to do, which is stream these puppets into a VR environment and still have the mixed-reality live component.”

This is just the beginning for the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab. “It’s still very early days in all this technology, whether it’s VR or AR or mixed reality,” Young says. “A lot of what we do in the lab is experiment around those areas. We’re fortunate to have access to iconic IP, so there are things like the Comic-Con experience with the Turtles that just feel right.”

And Nickelodeon is not at a loss for content to bring to new platforms. “You can see how easy it is for us to take our properties and put them into these new platforms and be able to share them as far as the new technology allows for it to be shared,” Young says.

And Nick’s young viewers will be the beneficiaries. “We’re always interested in being where kids are,” Young says. “We know they have a passion for these kinds of things, so we want to bring them as many opportunities to connect with our brand as possible.”

In addition to Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Live, Nickelodeon's SDCC 2018 booth will feature a towering New York City cityscape, featuring the bright lights, energy and iconic billboards of Times Square, as well as a hidden Turtles lair, housing a gif opportunity. Nickelodeon's full Comic-Con International: San Diego 2018 plans can be found here.

Kat Graham, Omar Miller, Josh Brener and Ant Ward Reveal What to Expect from 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'

On Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Nickelodeon's Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made their panel debut to screaming fans. They dropped a new trailer and announced a new lineup of famous voice actors as baddies. If the new hard-edged animation reminds you of Samurai Jack, that’s not an accident; the show’s co-executive producer Andy Suriano was a character designer on Jack. Not only are we getting a new storyline and some new baddies, but instead of Leonardo (played by Ben Schwartz) leading the crew, the turtles will be headed up by the oldest and biggest brother, Raphael, played by voice actor Omar Miller. Another first? The Turtles’ biggest ally, April O’Neal (voiced by Kat Graham), is going to be portrayed as a little black girl. SyFy Wire's Karama Horne got a chance to sit and talk to Omar and Kat, as well as Josh Brener, who pays Donatello, and the show’s other co-executive producer, Ant Ward, at SDCC about what to expect from the new show.

What's it been like meeting some of your fans here at SDCC?

Kat Graham: There is something so amazing about being a part of Ninja Turtles and seeing those fans and also playing the first black April O'Neil and having these young girls come up to me, it's such a different kind of experience. Plus they let me dress up as the character, which was amazing!

Omar Miller: The kids are really shy, like really shy. Yesterday on the panel some guys came in dressed as the Ninja Turtles, and that was a real fan favorite. The kids went nuts, which was really nice, but then when we met a lot of them, they were a bit intimidated. Maybe it's because I'm 6’8”.

Josh: Those weren't kids, Omar, that was me.

Ant, you also worked as a supervising producer on the previous version of the show. What’s one thing you want hardcore TMNT fans to come away with in this reboot?

Ant Ward: Well, it’s not really a reboot, it’s really a refresh. And the main theme, I think, is the sense of family, of brotherhood. It's coming hot off the heels from Ciro Nieli's fantastic 2012 version, which paid homage to so many different parts of the franchise as well as being a fantastic, unique voice itself. Andy and I had a genuine challenge to create something that was quintessentially Ninja Turtles, but also very different. And in every story what we always came down to was family. All of these fantastical adventures that these guys go on and April go on is almost just window dressing for having each other's back. No matter what happens.

There’s a bunch of new baddies that showed up in the new trailer along with some pretty famous voices. Will we see old baddies, like Shredder or Krang, come back too?

Ant: I believe the talking point is "You never know who's going to show up."

What's one thing that you want people to get each of your characters?

Omar: You know, what I can say with certainty that the cartoons that I watched as a kid had a profound effect on the man that I became. So what's important to me, responsibility-wise, is to do something that's fun but also that’s positive and also teaches kids. Kind of guide them along [a positive] path, and that's a reason for me to stay involved in this animated arena.

Josh: I just hope kids laugh and have a good time with it in addition to all of those good nuts and bolts. Just like what Omar was saying, I grew up on Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry and The Simpsons, and everything I know about comedy comes from those things.

Kat: I will third that and say that I spent many hours watching some of mix of Filburt and Heffer from Rocko’s Modern Life. Ren from Ren & Stimpy. But I will say that a huge reason why I auditioned and I wanted to be a part of this [show] is that I, I really hope that there is a young brown girl out there that sees a brown girl kicking ass in this show, that she's inspired and she feels empowered by that. I deeply pray that that happens.

Even if it's just on one girl. I wish that I saw that as a kid more. I really wish I had that. I hope that even boys will see this and they will feel really inspired, because we need it. This is America, we need this.

How do Raphael and Donatello compare to you in real life?

Omar: Well, I do like pizza. And I think that there are aspects of the character that I can remember when I was a teenager that I kind of reconnected me to some of my own memories. Because I’m playing a teenage hothead trying to figure everything out with his fists and thinks he knows everything. He's thinks he’s smarter than everybody else in the world, including his brothers, and I had five brothers, so, you know, a brotherhood thing is something I'm very familiar with. There are components of it that I can tie in personally. But then there's the fantasy aspect of it that is just unbeatable. Get this situation where you get to play and dance with all of the words and different ideas that pop into your head. So it's a lot of freedom that Nickelodeon and, and Ant and Andy and Robert Paulsen the director have given us. That helps me to enjoy the job a lot.

Josh: I've been having too much fun being Donatello, because we're both science nerds. Ant and I've been having a lot of fun lately because we've been coming up with all sorts of battle cries that are the nerdiest things we can think of, so it started with yelling out “Fibonacci!” as in the FIBONACCI series, and then Ant reasonably came up with “Sohcahtoa!”, which is a sine, cosine, and tangent, and we've just been dorking out and having a, having a good old time with that.

Ant: It's been genuinely a very fun experience. Those records when everybody's in those rooms, it's a fun, almost getaway to just watch the interaction between everybody. It's very funny.

Kat: I have such a good time. I could be having the worst week ever, and the second I get to work on like, oh my gosh, this is like amazing! I have such a good time. I hate when our sessions are over. I feel like we could just record for days. I have such a good time.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premieres Monday 17th September 2018 on Nickelodeon USA and Saturday 22nd September 2018 on Nicktoons UK & Ireland and Channel 5! Visit nick.com and nicktoons.co.uk/rise.

Fans in the US can watch the first episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Nick App, Nick.com/Rise, and Nickelodeon On Demand now. Fans in the UK will be able to watch the first episode of Rise of the TMNT, “Mystic Mayhem” on Nick.co.uk, Nicktoons.co.uk and the Nick Play app from Saturday 15th September 2018. Sky Subscribers will also be able to watch a sneak peek of Episode 1 along with four additional stories and 4 pieces of additional short form content exclusively on Sky VOD.

More Nick: 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' NEW Series OFFICIAL TRAILER w/ Bonus SNEAK PEEK | Nickelodeon!

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Double-Digit Nickelodeon CPM Growth Powers Strong Upfront Gains for Viacom

After more than a month of relative silence, media companies are now crossing the upfront finish line once again.

WWE's John Cena at Nickelodeon Upfront 2018

On the heels of Discovery, Inc., wrapping its negotiations, another major cable portfolio—Viacom—has also put the finishing touches on this year’s upfront market.

Heading into this year’s upfront with a new network (Paramount, formerly known as Spike) and several recent acquisitions like Whosay and VidCon, Viacom put questions about its future aside to secure upfront CPM (cost per thousand viewers reached) increases in the mid-to-high single digits for its non-kids networks and double-digit growth among its Nickelodeon networks (including Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Nicktoons and TeenNick).

It was Viacom’s strongest upfront pricing increases in a decade, sources close to negotiations revealed to Adweek.

Buyers responded to the company’s increased digital capabilities, with strong demand for Viacom Digital Studios, which made its NewFronts debut this year. The company quadrupled the upfront deals for its Viacom Vantage data platform.

There was also robust interest in MTV’s momentum, with shows like Jersey Shore Family Vacation.

Viacom’s upfront haul was bolstered by movie studios, which are increasing their spend across the company’s portfolio. Last year, in the first upfront under ad sales chief Sean Moran and CEO Robert Bakish, the company saw high single-digit increases and positive volume growth.

For the second straight year, Viacom skipped big upfront presentations, other than its Nickelodeon event, for intimate agency dinners, during which the network presidents, Moran and Bakish made their pitch to marketers.

Those Presidents Dinners focused on how far Viacom had come in the past year and not on parent company National Amusement’s efforts to re-merge Viacom and CBS (which has led to a legal battle between CBS and National Amusements).

Sean Moran

Regardless of how things shake out with CBS, Moran told Adweek in April, “We’re excited about our own position, because we feel like we’re in a much stronger position this year than we were last year and how all the brands and the flagship six are doing, both from a ratings perspective and a multiplatform perspective.”

In addition to its networks, Viacom successfully pushed in the upfront for partnerships with influencer marketing company Whosay, which it bought in January, as well as VidCon, which it acquired in February.

During upfront negotiations, Viacom weathered the loss of two network chiefs, each of whom had been at the company for decades. BET CEO Debra Lee departed in late May and Nickelodeon Group president Cyma Zarghami exited shortly after. Zarghami’s departure, however, seemed to have no effect on upfront talks, given Nickelodeon’s big gains this year.

Several media companies finished their upfront talks in mid-June, but until the past day, no one else had crossed the upfront finish line since CBS did so a month ago.

Discovery has also just completed its upfront talks. However, several other companies, including NBCUniversal, Turner and ABC have yet to wrap their upfront negotiations.

Kids’ Choice Sports 2018 Video Round-Up | Nickelodeon

Orange Carpet Fun w/ JoJo Siwa, Michael Phelps, Shaun White & More 🏀 | Kids’ Choice Sports | Nickelodeon



Kids’ Choice Sports is TONIGHT and all of your favorite sports stars and celebrities like JoJo Siwa, Michael Phelps, Shaun White, Isaiah Thomas, Roman Reigns, Rose Namajunas, Mirai Nagasu, Danica Patrick, Mikaela Shiffrin, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Kevin Knox, P. J. Tucker, and Raini and Rico Rodriguez came out to play the Nickelodeon way. Check out all of the fun that went down on the Orange Carpet! And don’t miss Kids’ Choice Sports tonight at 8, only on Nick USA! 🏀

Mikaela Shiffrin, P.K. Subban & More Athletes Dance Battle to Bruno Mars 💃🕺 | KCS Awards 2018 | Nick



Mikaela Shiffrin, Ibtihaj Muhammad, P.K. Subban and P.J. Tucker battle for the chance to present the first blimp of the night in the ‘Shake and Break’ challenge. Watch them break it down while breaking eggs, whoopie cushions, and a wall! 💃🕺

JoJo Siwa Hosts a SLIME Challenge ft. Shaun White, Chloe Kim & More! 🛒 | KCS Awards 2018 | Nick



JoJo Siwa hosts a brand-new, multi-part challenge with players Chloe Kim, Alex & Maia Shibutani, Shaun White and Knight Squad's Amarr Wooten and Lilimar. Who partners up? Who wins? And, most importantly, who gets SLIME DUNKED in the massive green tank?! See how it all goes down in ‘Battle Cart Royale!’ 🛒

Chris Paul, Isaiah Thomas & Candace Parker Play Slime Dunk Challenge 🏀 | KCS Awards 2018 | Nick



REAL kids get the opportunity to dunk their favorite basketball players Candace Parker (Los Angeles Sparks) and Isaiah Thomas (Denver Nuggets) in a slime-filled tank! 🏀

Come back ALL NIGHT for more Kids' Choice Sports videos! 🏀

Michael Phelps Takes on Chris Paul in a Double Dare Race w/ Liza Koshy 🚩 | KCS Awards 2018 | Nick



Gold-medal winner Michael Phelps loses his shoe while making an epic run through the Double Dare obstacle course against Kids' Choice Sports host Chris Paul. While both legendary athletes absolutely CRUSH the slimy chaos, Liza Koshy and Marc Summers can only announce one winner. And the winner is... 🚩

Danica Patrick Gets GOLD SLIMED While Accepting Legend Award 🏎️ | KCS Awards 2018 | Nick



Danica Patrick gets the honorary GOLD slime after giving an inspiring Legend Award acceptance speech on finding your passion and taking it to the next level! 🏎️

On This Day | 'All Growed Up' Premieres | Nickelodeon

On this day 17 YEARS AGO, we got our first peek at the Rugrats in the special All Growed Up!:


Remember when we got our first peek at the Rugrats All Grown Up?

Watch all your '90s Nickelodeon favorites on NickSplat, your late-night destination for your favorite childhood Nickelodeon cartoons and live-action shows! NickSplat doesn't question football-shaped heads, but embrace them - along with Reptar bars, a Big Ear of Corn, orange soda, and even slime for Pete (and Pete's) sake. Make your slime-covered Nickelodeon childhood dreams come true every night at 11 PM ET/PT, only on TeenNick USA! #NickSplat!

More Nick: Nickelodeon and Paramount to Bring Rugrats Back for the Next Generation of Kids with an All-New TV Series and Feature Film!

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The Outsiders | Full Short by Eric Bravo | Nickelodeon Animated Shorts

Gerald and Miles are lost in the woods and try to journey back following their trail mix trail, only to be lead to a hungry bear in The Outsiders, another one of Nickelodeon's awesome Animated Shorts, created by Eric Bravo (Penguins of Madagascar, Taylor Swift: I Knew You Were Trouble)!



The Outsiders was selected as a finalist in the 2014 edition of Nickelodeon's world renowned Animated Shorts Program, and features the voices of: Drew Massey (Mutt & Stuff, All That, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Robot Chicken, Malcolm in the Middle, Men in Black as Miles; Eric Edelstein (Hotel for Dogs, All That, Pig Goat Banana Cricket, Monsters vs. Aliens, Parks and Recreation, Jurassic World) as Billy the Bear; and Will Friedle (Winx Club, Penguins of Madagascar, Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, this awesome '90s Nickelodeon rap video) as Gerald.

Watch lots more animated shorts from the Nickelodeon Global Animated Shorts Program on the official Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Facebook page and on the Nick Animation YouTube channel!

Check out Eric's blog called "Storyboard Room", which helps people aspiring to get into the entertainment business by interviewing industry professionals in animation about how they got into the industry!

Check out the Nickelodeon Animation Studio online:

Official NAS Website: http://nickanimationstudio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NickAnimation
Tumblr: http://nickanimation.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickAnimation
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickanimation/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/NickAnimationStudios

More Nick: Nickelodeon Greenlights New Original Animated Comedy Series 'Pony' | Nick Upfront 2018!

Additional source: IMDb.

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